


Spill the wine and take that pearl

by feyrelay



Series: Wine, Tango, Fuck You Marvel (aka Everything Was Fluffy and Nothing Hurt) [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, College Student Peter Parker, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 09:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18118199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Peter's old enough to know what he wants, but not old enough to know all his cues.





	Spill the wine and take that pearl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GabesGurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabesGurl/gifts).



Peter’s first spring break from MIT happened to coincide with May and Pepper’s vacation. They had pre-booked 6 days of pampering after Peter said he’d be staying in Cambridge to work on a project.

Of course his overachieving ass had finished the project that Friday night, and he now had a week off bookended by two free weekends, and no reason to stick around the dorm.

He went to the compound. (Of course he did.)

Peter had even decided to take the train up to Albany, arriving on Saturday evening, and then surreptitiously webbed his way through the fading light to surprise Tony.

Tony had been thoroughly surprised, delighted even, though Peter caught the way the older man scrubbed a hand through his hair and down the side of his face, over stubble peppered with gray, as if he were ashamed of his appearance. Also, he had no groceries.

That’s how Peter ended up with a projected menu of drone-order groceries to decide on, trying desperately to not think about Tony scrambling down the hallway to go take a shower. His mentor had tossed a, “You can have whatever you want, kid,” over his shoulder.

 _You can have whatever you want_ , Peter had echoed to himself, mentally.

(Apparently not.)

\---

By the time Tony has emerged, in a Black Sabbath shirt and ridiculously bootcut sweatpants that looked soft as all hell, Peter has ordered them a bunch of things he liked, some staples, and some favorites for Tony. He’s hard at work putting things away in the compound kitchen, when Tony comes up behind him to make grabby hands at the brie and pretzel thins.

“I always forget which brie is the good brie and which is the feet-smelling one,” he quips, reaching past Peter to shave a thin slice off the edge of the wedge. Peter can feel the float of steam coming off Tony and condensing on the back of Peter’s cold neck.

“You like the Fromager d'Affinois, if I recall correctly,” Peter says mildly, concentrating on the way this feels. (Domestic.)

Tony hums. “You usually do.” He steps away, snagging a small stack of pretzel thins, the back of his hand brushing Peter’s bicep.

“Feel better after a shower?” Peter asks, turning to face the man. He feels defensive, wound up. Since when does Tony clean up for _him_?

Tony shrugs and that ratchets Peter’s frustration up, but it’s also helplessly endearing, and Peter feels himself start to relax. After a beat, a stare, he gets an answer out of Tony, “Been in the lab for 2 days. Not sure what I ate. Wasn’t expecting company.”

Peter does the mental math. “Weee-ell. Fri orders groceries weekly, right? Since Pepper moved out? And you didn’t have anything before all this got here. I mean, nothing besides some old taco shells and condiments, and organic, flash-frozen peas. So… you must have eaten plenty between the restock and now? Probably hand-to-mouth, s’why you don’t remember.”

Tony huffs, like he’s offended to be so _known_ , and tries to snag the bottle of wine Peter had picked. Peter doesn’t say a word, just looks at Tony’s retreating back and how the black concert shirt sticks to the damp area where his spine curves.

Tony stops in the middle of that weird no-man’s land between the living room and the kitchen, where the wide counter and the bar stools make their home. “No?” he says, a question.

“Maybe… maybe not tonight?” Peter suggests, voice even, not unfriendly. “When’s the last time you drank anything that wasn’t a diuretic?” he adds, to take the sting of puritanical judgment out.

Tony tosses the bottle backwards over his shoulder, sure that Peter will catch it before it breaks and stains the white marble, the light carpet, Peter’s white smile, the light mood, anything.

He does.

\---

They watch the season finale of their favorite show, a two-parter, which Tony had promised he wouldn’t watch without Peter. Tony drinks two bottles of water, crushing the plastic inward with his breaths and the sucking of negative pressure.

Peter hates to see the waste of disposable bottles, especially since he hears MJ’s voice nagging in his head every time he cracks a new one open before handing it to Tony. However, he knows if he leaves a 24-pack of Dasani on the counter that they’ll be gone by the end of the week, despite the state of the art water-filter Tony has installed everywhere it might be needed.

Sometimes filling up a reusable bottle or cup or glass is just too much of an ask. Peter knows this, too.

They take an intermission between the two episodes of the finale, so Tony can pee and Peter can text May to let her know he’d made it to Albany alright and that, no, he did _not_ want her to cut her vacation short.

After fifteen minutes, Peter goes to check on Tony. He knocks on the bathroom door, but gets no answer. Peter finds the older man leaned against the glass of the shower enclosure, asleep. He’s obviously been to the bathroom and flushed, and his pants are on, if unbuttoned, but it seems he’d just been too exhausted to leave the bathroom.

Peter rouses him long enough to get Tony’s hands washed and then half-drags, half-carries him to his bedroom and gets him settled. _Poor thing_ , Peter thinks.

If he were any other young adult, he might feel cheated, at having to take care of his mentor during his own damn spring break, but as it is, he just feels privileged. (Needed.)

If this is what this week is gonna be, he’s up for it.

\---

That’s not what happens, though, because Peter wakes up on Sunday morning feeling like absolute shit. He’d forgotten to close the curtains to his bedroom window, and the sun is far too bright. He can hear birds chirping their fucking heads off outside the window as well; they’re only a week or two away from the official start of spring and it’s been warming up already.

Peter rolls over to get the sun out of his eyes, and feels his stomach roll along with the motion. It’s been years since he’s actually been sick -- it’s a perk of the spider DNA.

He sleeps for three more hours, or so his phone insists when he wakes up later.

Tony is leaning with his back against Peter’s bed, remote in hand, and there’s a TV mounted on what had yesterday been a blank spot on the wall of his bedroom there at the compound.

“You what, mate?” Peter croaks, because apparently his brain has cooked in the early afternoon sun, and all it has is memes.

“I installed it while you were sleeping; it was kind of a challenge because I didn’t want to wake you, so I had to invent a silent drill to make the pilot holes for the mounting hardware, first.”

Peter parses this. It takes a couple tries. “I’m cold,” he settles on, in answer.

Tony slings an afghan at him over his shoulder; when Peter leans to the side to figure out where it came from, he finds that Tony has a stack of folded, clean blankets next to him, as well as several bottles of blue Powerade and a box of saltines. “Of course you are, you have some kind of bug.”

Peter collapses back against his pillow. No, make that _pillows_. A few have been added since he fell asleep last night.

“That makes sense,” he breathes, though it doesn’t. Not really.

“Wanna watch the last episode of _The 100_?” Tony returns, as if the conversation was naturally leading there.

“Sure. Why not?”

\---

“I’m still cold,” Peter whines as they finish binge-watching _Grace & Frankie _, several hours later. He feels bad for being childish, but not bad enough to stop him from asking, “Can you put some socks on my feet for me?” A beat, and then he adds, “Please?”

Tony doesn’t hesitate to get up and look through Peter’s bag for a pair. Peter has a mild heart attack at the thought of Tony pawing through his luggage; he can’t remember if he packed his vibrating dildo or not.

Tony comes up with a pair of comfy socks that are patterned with little Mjolnirs and lightning bolts, and slips them on Peter’s feet like it’s no big deal. (Maybe it’s not.)

Peter shivers at the glancing touch of Tony’s thumb on the bone of his ankle, and the thin skin there.

“Still cold? I can have Friday turn up the climate control.”

“No, I’m good,” he admits. It’s easier now that the room is mostly dark, and lit only by the glow of the TV.

Tony sits down on the end of Peter’s bed, facing away from him. He sighs, and Peter’s foggy, wet-cotton-filled brain catches on the stutters in the sound. Tony sounds like the sigh is being drawn out of him. “Can I ask you something?” he prefaces.

“Of course,” Peter replies, voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you miss your parents?”

It shocks Peter. He doesn’t think Tony has _ever_ brought up Richard and Mary Parker. They’ve talked about Ben, a few times, and Maria and Howard a tiny bit here and there. “Uh…”

(He doesn’t want to say ‘no’, but the answer isn’t quite ‘yes’, either.)

“Sorry, Pete. I know it’s highly personal-”

“No, it’s okay! I, uh. I mean, I guess the answer is I don’t really know? I miss the idea more than anything, because I barely remember them. The perfect family, you know? Having someone to come to all my ‘Family Night’ events at school, the science fair, graduation. Someone to…”

“Take care of you when you’re sick?” Tony ventures.

Peter’s words catch in his throat. “Yeah.”

Tony blows out a breath. “You know, I’m only able to be there for you today because you were there for me last night. I woke up feeling so much better this morning.”

“I’m glad, sir.”

Tony hums, and Peter watches as his silhouette settles forward, forearms to knees and hands clasped. “You haven’t called me ‘sir’ in a long time. Don’t need to. Not when you’re showing up here, as a surprise, making a gift of yourself, ordering wine with my account and then not letting me drink it. Putting me to bed.”

“Is that not what this is about? You wanting to make sure I know you’re not my dad?” Peter ghosts out, voice thin. He hates being sick, always has. He hates how easy it makes it for his eyes to go hot and his throat to go painful and strained against childish feelings like hurt, like hope.

Tony shuffles around in the blue-dark and clambers up the side of Peter’s queen-sized bed to settle next to him. “I know you know that. That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what do you want from me?” Peter asks, cutting in with the question, quick and needy.

Tony’s gaze meets his in the glittering black and blue as Netflix autoplays in the background. As Netflix plays in the background on the TV Tony installed _this morning_. For him. “Nothing, kid.”

Peter tucks his face into Tony’s neck to keep from crying or saying something embarrassing. Tony pets at his hair, just once, then withdraws to settle with at least a foot of space between them. Peter tries to accept that that’s all the contact he’s going to get. He’ll make do.

“Go to sleep,” Tony answers, despite Peter not saying a damned thing.

He doesn’t dream, doesn’t dare to.

\---

Monday is fairly uneventful. It rains, and Tony amasses a small collection of tools on the floor of Peter’s room, just for something to fiddle with. They spend the day sharing control of the music, alternating songs between classics and newer songs, with Friday taking all of their requests in stride. Peter enjoys sharing his tastes with Tony, finds it gratifying, and as always he loves the feeling of filing away another detail about what Tony likes.

They eat their way through most of the groceries Peter had ordered, and talk about school, and Pepper and May and the twins -- who Tony informs him are staying with Rhodey and Carol’s adult daughter, Luna, because Luna and her girlfriend need taste-testers for the wedding cake and neither Carol nor Rhodey get a vote. When Peter asks why not, Tony says Rhodey’s taste buds are burnt out from sucking face with Carol once while she was “going Super Saiyan” and Carol’s palate is just, well, _alien_.

Peter nods like that makes sense because… this is their life. Aliens and shit. Fucked up blended families and androids and co-parenting and stuff.

He _loves it_.

Tony must catch the look on Peter’s face because his eyes go a little crinkly, like he’s thinking the same thing, and it’s a beautiful moment. Here they are, holed up out of the rain which is dampening the sound and the light of the outside world, and pretending nothing else exists. In the same breath, they can acknowledge that there is a whole slew of abstract others, people out there, who love them and mean something to them.

It’s amazing to think that they _got everyone back_ , and even gained some _new_ people. There’s a whole _Avengers extended family_ out there.

But they’re not here, now. Now, Tony and Peter are alone.

It’s a little much, if Peter’s being honest. He says, “So, are you, like, my nurse?”

“What?” Tony laughs out a little breathlessly, with his eyes still on Peter.

“Do I get some alone time, or are you going to keep vigil with me all day?”

There’s a pause, electric. Tony asks carefully, “Is there something you don’t want me to know about? Something you don’t want me around for? I mean. I can leave, go for a drive, no problem?”

“No,” Peter answers honestly. (I want you to know.)

Tony regards him neutrally, waiting for more.

“No!” Peter insists, adding, “If I didn’t want to be around you, I wouldn’t have come here.”

“Why _did_ you come here?” Tony pushes, as he leans forward, intent.

“Where else would I go?” Peter counters. It feels like the wrong answer.

Tony huffs. “You have other places you could go.”

Peter knows that, he does. He could have gone to hang out with Ned and Michelle, or just gone back to May and Pepper’s place and enjoyed having the run of the apartment. “That’s not what I meant. I was just saying that… well. I meant that I thought it was obvious I’d rather hang out here. I thought you might want me here, that’s all.”

“I never said I didn’t,” Tony sighs, but Peter interrupts.

“I didn’t mean to get sick-”

“It’s no problem, that’s not what I’m-”

“I’ve never been sick since the bite-”

“I really don’t mind-”

“So I wasn’t expecting this to be what we did-”

“You’re not even sick!” Tony cuts in.

Peter tilts his head involuntarily, at that. “What?”

“You’re not even sick, I just wanted to… repay your kindness. You slept in that first morning -- straight through me installing the TV -- and when I tried to wake you you were so groggy. I wanted to take care of you because you took care of me, show some reciprocity, and… well. The power of suggestion? You thought you were sick, so I guess you started to feel sick?”

“Oh my god,” Peter sputters. “Do you have Munchausen's by proxy? Is this like that one episode of that old show, _House_?”

Tony closes his eyes briefly as his lips form a line pressed thin with either stress or mirth or both. “No.”

But Peter’s not one to let a train of thought go, no matter how derailed it might get. He’s one to let it keep plowing through his mind, intent on catastrophe. “Why did I feel a little sick, then, before you even came in? Before I fell asleep again, that morning?”

Tony’s affect goes a little less flat, frustration dissipating from his voice, as he thinks out loud about his reply. “Hmmmm. I dunno, kid. Have you got anything to be nervous about?”

Peter elects not to go there, not now, and plays up his feelings of betrayal to engage Tony’s too-well-attuned sense of guilt. “I don’t know, but I think I might need some ice cream to get over it.”

Tony snorts, but he’s already asking Friday to place an order.

\---

On Tuesday, Peter (mindful that May and Pepper get back tomorrow, and will doubtlessly want to see him) leverages Tony’s remaining guilt over the whole ‘placebo effect problem’ he’d caused to score a change of venue. They still spend the day inside in deference to the pouring spring rain, but they decamp to Tony’s bedroom instead.

Peter is very careful not to drip any Hulk-a-Hulk-a-Burnin’-Fudge onto any of Tony’s bedroom furniture.

He’s feeling better -- healthier, at least -- but no less antsy.

“Can I ask you something?” Tony starts again, an echo of their conversation from a few nights ago.

Peter just steals a bite of Stark Raving Hazelnuts, pointedly. ( _See? Look, we share everything_.)

“Why are we hanging out in here, and not in the living room? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I probably don’t spend enough time in this bed, but it does beg the question.”

Peter must be stress-eating, because he finishes the tiny pint of gourmet ice cream and reaches for another flavor. His own, this time. Ironically, It’s-Spidey-Good Coffee isn’t his favorite. He lets the bite melt on his tongue though, stalling for time.

“Why do you keep worrying so much about my motivations, sir?” (When in doubt, answer a question with a question.)

Tony, unimpressed, returns a snarky question of his own. “Why do you keep trying to insert emotional distance between us by calling me ‘sir’?”

Okay, it’s officially a game now, and one Peter intends to win. “Where’d you learn a big boy word like ‘emotional distance’, _Mr. Stark_?”

Tony’s laugh is a bright, unexpected thing in this tastefully decorated room full of metallics and neutrals. “You wanna kiss my ass, kid?”

“You wanna pick a spot, since you’re _all_ ass?” (Oh god, what if he said, “Right down the middle.”)

Tony sets his finished pint of ice cream aside ( _fuckin’ arrogant_ , Peter thinks, _eating your own flavor_ , until he remembers he’s doing the same). “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know. Wanna fight about it?” Peter challenges. (Please say ‘no’.)

Tony scoffs in response, but fixes him with a surprisingly full-bodied look all the same. “I don’t wanna fight about it. I don’t wanna fight at all, about anything.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

\---

Peter wakes up in Tony’s bed, mouth sticky and a little sour from all the ice cream. He’d fallen asleep to the sound of the rain, at god-knows-what time. He’s sure Tony had continued fiddling with his tools and designs for a few more hours, and yet. Yet, here he is, next to Peter, one arm settled in the dip of Peter’s waist. It’s the left arm, the one that goes numb if Tony sits sideways on the couch for too long.

His skin tingles from the sheer pleasure of knowing that little factoid. Tony’s still asleep and so Peter spends far too long cataloging all the things he knows about the man. He knows that Tony is a heathen who likes Sunny D orange ‘drink’ instead of real juice from actual oranges. He knows Tony is secretly terrified of MJ and what dark plot she’s cooking up to overthrow his capitalist empire. He knows Tony keeps locks of Maria and Morgan’s hair in his desk drawer, and that even though they’re twins, he can tell the two locks apart. He knows Tony has long since moved on from thinking his angular signature facial hair is anything but ridiculous, but that he keeps it because the kids he visits in the children’s hospitals like it, recognize it, remember it when he comes to check on them, to give them the next size up in bionic prostheses.

Peter blinks and suddenly, he’s being observed in return. (He knows Tony wakes quickly and silently, now, and has since Afghanistan, though he used to moan and groan and hate mornings like Garfield hates Mondays when he was in college, to hear Rhodey tell it.)

“Hey,” Tony grounds out, voice full of gravel.

“Hey.”

“How are you feeling?” Tony manages, propping up the conversation without much help from Peter.

“I’m fine now,” he contributes. Stretches, toes popping. “More than fine.”

“Is that right?” Tony breathes, looking a little unmoored with his hair a wreck and a smudge of ice cream at the corner of his mouth. “You know, we can’t have the wine now. It’s,” he glances at the wall, “not even 9:00am yet.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter groans, closing his eyes. He doesn’t appreciate being burdened with the specific knowledge of how early it is, thanks.

“The wine, the wine. It’s the only thing that you picked out that we haven’t devoured. You came to my house for a surprise visit, bought fancy cheese and wine, and then chickened out. I thought. Well, when are we gonna have the wine? Together, you know? Do you follow?”

“Is this some kind of Gen X code?”

“Wha-at? Don’t remind me of my age, please, sweetheart. Not before 10 o’clock. Not before I’ve brushed my teeth. I just wanna ‘have wine’ with you. Eventually.”

“You don’t even _like_ wine, you like scotch and champagne and occasionally bourbon. I bought wine because Aunt May says you should always have wine on hand, just in case.”

“Yeah! Pete. In case. In case of a date. If you wanna have sex,” Tony explains.

“Oh my god, I think that _is_ what she said. Oh, fuck.”

Tony buries his face in his pillow to laugh. Peter can feel the vibration of it through Tony’s fancy mattress, just barely. (It’s a nice mattress. He could sleep here, regularly.)

“Shut the fuck up, old man. You’re the one who forgets things all the time. I’m allowed to do it once; it’d be _egalitarian_ of you to kindly can it.”

Tony lifts his face out of the pillow to continue grinning at him, “Where’d you learn a big boy word like ‘egalitarian’, huh?”

And suddenly it’s the easiest thing in the world for Peter to hook his leg up and around Tony’s hip and draw him closer using strength alone, not even straining against the odd angle. He wants this, wants to mirror all the close conversations they’ve been having this week (part of one long, years-old conversation). “Kiss my ass.”

“Pick a spot,” Tony quips, picking up the game as his grin widens.

Peter picks a spot. He picks several spots.

Some of them are even appropriate.

(They have the wine, after.)


End file.
